Children learn by copying. A small girl holds a pen the way her father does; a boy tilts his head exactly like his grandmother when he is thinking. Nobody taught them — they watched. Ephesians 5 opens by asking readers to be 'imitators of God' in just this way, as beloved children. Much of the chapter is about what that looks like in daily life: speech, sex, drink, worship. Then it steps inside the household, and here a modern reader meets one of the Bible's most debated passages — instructions to wives and husbands written for a world very different from ours.
Where it sits in the story: Act 5 — the church. Early Christian households were where churches met, so the new faith had to show what it meant in ordinary family life. Greek and Roman moralists wrote 'household codes' setting out duties of husbands, wives, children and slaves; Ephesians takes over that familiar form and reshapes it around Christ, beginning here with marriage.
What this chapter is doing: To show a community living as light in a dark culture — generous, clean-spoken, worshipping — and to set marriage within the pattern of Christ's self-giving love, while still working within the household arrangements of its time.
- 5:1–7 — Be imitators of God and live in love, as Christ loved and gave himself up. Sexual immorality, greed and crude joking have no place among God's people; do not be deceived by empty words.
- 5:8–14 — Once darkness, they are now light in the Lord. They should live as children of light, expose deeds done in darkness, and heed an early saying: 'Wake up, sleeper', and Christ will shine on you.
- 5:15–21 — Live wisely and make the most of the time. Do not get drunk, but be filled with the Spirit — singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, giving thanks always, and submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
- 5:22–33 — Wives are told to submit to their husbands as to the Lord; husbands are told to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, caring for them as for their own bodies. Quoting Genesis on the two becoming one flesh, the writer says he is speaking of Christ and the church.
- Complementarian: the passage teaches a lasting pattern of male headship in marriage, defined by loving service rather than domination.
- Egalitarian: 5:21 governs the whole section; the code adapts to its culture while planting principles that point toward equal partnership.
- Historical-critical: the code reflects the social conventions of its day, and was later used to defend women's subordination; it should be read as a product of that setting.
Key verse: Ephesians 5:2 · So what: This passage has shaped countless weddings and, sadly, has also been used to excuse control and even abuse. Honest reading holds both: it assumes the husband-led household of its day, yet it also asks husbands for costly, self-giving love and places all submission under 'one another'. Readers disagree on what carries over today, but no reading can use it to justify cruelty.